Ian flies the world

From Africa to London and London again

4 October 1987 Zambia Airways 2 Lusaka to London Gatwick
5 October 1987 Zambia Airways 2 London Gatwick to London Heathrow

While we were still in Mutare, we went to the travel
agency there and reconfirmed our homeward flight. The paper we
were given still showed that the reservation was in Business
Class, so it was with a great relief that when we checked in, we
were allocated seats in Economy Class. Personally, I would have
liked to try Sable Class, one of the more unusual names for a
Business Class, but didn't want to pay a fortune for the
privilege. All the same, I am intrigued as to why the flight was
apparently overbooked while we were in London, but still had a
few seats free when the airliner took off.

Checking in was only made more interesting by the fact
that while in Zimbabwe we had bought the local edition of
Trivial Pursuit, which the Zambian customs officials thought
enormously interesting when they found it in our suitcase. When
we explained what it was, they seemed to lose interest.

The expatriates we had met in Zimbabwe had thought that
buying this was an extraordinary thing, as most of them had
spent time attempting to import British copies of the game. What
is a novelty in one place might not be a novelty somewhere else.
One man's Meat is another man's Poisson.

After check-in, as we were obviously at an airport devoid
of anything else likely to capture the attention, we went
through to the departure lounge, which bore a striking
resemblance to the transit lounge where we had been a week or so
before. After a few minutes, I found that I was in conversation
with a guard who looked familiar. He had never seen any South
African money. Neither had we: we had not been to South Africa,
just to Zimbabwe. Curiously enough, he had never seen any of
their money either. I was sorry, I couldn't show him any: surely
he must know how tight the currency regulations were. I can only
assume that he must have been very new at the job.

As it turned out, currency regulations in Zambia are not
as tight as we had been led to believe. We were not questioned
about the money we were taking out, although I consider this to
have been an oversight. I would certainly not recommend counting
on it if you were thinking of trading currency unofficially.

We discovered at the last moment that foreign nationals
must pay their departure tax in United States dollars.
Fortunately, we had a hundred dollar bill with us, which we
carried just in case, but this did leave us with an unacceptably
large residue of kwacha. We couldn't get rid of them, as there
was nothing to buy in the airport.

The X-ray machines in Lusaka may well have been the sort
that does fog films, but we were destined not to find out
because it wasn't fogging any films at all, or doing anything
else. Therefore, our baggage was all checked by hand. This was
probably unnecessary, but you can never be too careful.

The flight left on time, and the food was good. A great
disappointment was noticing the large number of South African
products on offer, which Zambia Airways were obliged to offer to
make the airline credible. Coca-Cola, unobtainable in Zambia
itself, was there, clearly labelled in English and Afrikaans.

While somewhere over northern Africa, the famous notice
"if there is a doctor on board, could he please make himself
known" was broadcast, for one of the passengers had been taken
ill, presumably with something quite serious.

We arrived over London on time, and as we fastened our
seat belts and looked at the no smoking signs, the airliner came
lower and lower, until on our final descent we almost reached
the ground. The runway lights were bright, and then quite
suddenly the pilot put on full power as we climbed into the air
again.

Sudden fog has reduced visibility at Heathrow, we were
told. We circled for a few minutes and came in for a second
attempt, which took exactly the same form. The lights suddenly
became covered with cloud, and the aeroplane climbed into the
air. We will circle for a while, and then try again. As it
turned out, we didn't try again. Visibility reduced to zero, and
we were diverted to Gatwick, where we landed with no problem at
all.

We expected to get off and clear immigration there, but
this was not to be. The sick man was taken away in an ambulance,
but the rest of us, having first enthusiastically looked at
timetables and maps to see how to get back home from Gatwick
instead of Heathrow, soon realised that we would be waiting on
the ground at Gatwick for a while.

We were fortunate, I suppose, considering one story I have
heard. It might be true, or it might not, that on one occasion
the whole of western Europe was fog-bound, and a flight from
South Africa was diverted to Athens, from where the passengers
were bussed to London. This seems a particularly nasty thing to
happen. Bussing from Athens to London would surely be measured
in days rather than hours.

Anyway, looking out of the window, it seemed that every
available piece of tarmac in Gatwick had a wide-bodied jet
parked on it. Presumably the authorities couldn't cope with
processing all Heathrow's overnight flights as well as their
own. At this time, Gatwick was overcrowded, because their new
terminal was still under construction.

So we waited on the ground for about two hours, and then
took the short flight to Heathrow. I believe that there are very
few who have flown from Gatwick to Heathrow at all, and less
still who have done it on a Zambia Airways DC-10. We know that
the airliner's name is Nkwazi because Zambia has no other wide-
bodied jets.

The arrivals board in Terminal 3 incongruously declared
that our flight had come from Gatwick, a name that jarred
against the more exotic names from which most of the others
claimed to have come. Most of those had been at Gatwick too.